To Dream of Pigs: Travels in South and North Korea

by Clive Leatherdale

'The scariest place on earth.' So said President Bill Clinton on his visit to the no-man's land between South and North Korea in 1993. With the end of the Cold War in Europe, the minefields and barbed wire that divide the two Koreas constitute the jagged edge of world peace. If the world is to endure a nuclear holocaust, Korea is the likely flashpoint.
Although one can peep inside Stalinist North Korea from the capitalist South, to set foot within that hermetic state requires a journey of several thousand miles--from Soul to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong to Beijing, and form Beijing to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. And this presupposes that the North Korean Embassy in Beijing will happily grant a visa to any itinerant Westerner requesting one--which, as this book explains, is not the case.

This book, then, is a collection of field observations and reflections by Clive Leatherdale who undertook two separate journeys to South Korea and North Korea. This book title comes from the familiar Korean folk tale of "dreaming of a pig" as a good omen of fortune and enrichment, the story that he was told by a student in South Korea. The writer makes a conscious attempt to draw parallels between his modern day travels and the earlier accounts of Westerners' travels to Korea's hermit-kingdom in bygone eras.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1994

Reviews

[Graham Holliday · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in 1996 and re-read it a couple of years ago. I couldn't quite bear to see it sitting here without a single review to its name, so briefly... 'To Dream Of Pigs' was a freak when it was first published; a travelogue about South Korea (with a bit of the North thrown in at the end). South Korea was also well off the drop-outs, dreadlocks and dope route through Asia in the early 90's (or at any time, to be honest), no foreigners were interested in travelling around Korea back then unless they were sent there to work and even fewer people wrote about their time there. So, who would read Leatherdale's take on the place in 1995? Very few folk, it would seem. And that's a shame, because 'Pigs' is an entertaining account, very much of its time and all the more endearing for it. It's worth viewing this account as one in a shockingly sparse, but lengthy, line of Korea travelogues in which 'Pigs' takes its rightful place after a mere two other books; 'Korea and Her Neighbours' by Isabella Bird-Bishop published in 1898 and 'Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles' by Simon Winchester published in 1988. There hasn't been a single serious South Korea travelogue published since 1995's 'Pigs' which is surprising given the numbers of foreigners living, working and visiting the country since the turn of the century. North Korea seems to get all the attention. As such, this book is a bit of an artefact (and probably out of print) but it's well worth hunting down if South Korea's recent past is of interest and if you're searching for a bit of an outsider's view on what was back then, but is far less so today, a quite intimidating and tricky culture to navigate for foreigners.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Clive's book after seeing Graham Holliday's review. Graham is an author I greatly respect and one I've eagerly enjoyed devouring both Eating Korea and Eating Vietnam. That said Mr. Clive's book is thoroughly interesting. Clive writes one of the few accounts of traveling around Korea focusing on the South. I've read a number of books on Korea which almost exclusively focus on the North. One of the things I love about South Korea and Taiwan for that matter is that they tend to be off of the tourist path of Japan, China, Vietnam and Thailand that check the boxes for most western tourists.

Clive wrote this book while in his mid-thirty to mid-forties and perhaps being in that same age range makes me connect with it more. I've spent a month or more in Korea each year for most of the last 14 years and Clive's observations rang true. That being said I visited Korea 25-30 years after his visits, so it is fascinating how few things have changed. Steps are still uneven, Daegu (Taegu) is still sort of grumpy and uninviting and Ulleungdo still doesn't have an airport (not for a lack of trying). What has changed is Korea's democratic institutions. While the Chaebol still reign supreme disgraced former President Park Geun-hye was ousted without any of the violence on frequent display in To Dream of Pigs. South Korea still has many problems to deal with, but it's feeble democracy of the late 1980's and early 1990's has developed into something that will hopefully prove to be strong and lasting.

I enjoyed that I have been to most of the same places as Clive, all of which made an impression on me: Seoul, Sokcho and Seoraksan, Pohang, Ulleungdo, Busan, Cheju, Mokpo and Panmunjom. I shared his dislike of Gyeongju where I ate a disappointing pork cutlet. While I'd say I'm decently well read I did find some of the Englishness of this book hard to penetrate and at some times even hard to understand, especially references to Derbyshire, comparisons with UK politicians and etc. This book does a great job of sharing what Korea was like 30 years ago. The most disappointing chapters were those on North Korea which made the author seem like a whiny tourist enjoying a visit to the gulag that is North Korea. While at the time of writing I imagine this would have been more enlightening than it is now, so much has been published on the North that it comes off almost cliche - that's not the author's fault because he was there before most other accounts. Comrades and Strangers by Michael Harrold, another Brit, is worth a read on living in North Korea.